Taiwu strategy guide/planning for invasion and harder difficulties

This is a strategy guide for Scroll of Taiwu : how to plan ahead and grow for playing on hard/harder/deadly difficulties and invasion mode, what to do and in what order. This guide will not cover gameplay basics as it would be too long and there are numerous other guides for that.
Apart from that, it can also be considered as a list of game features, a list of "what you can do in taiwu". Although it is not exhaustive and there is more to do then what's listed here, I believe I cover most of the basic/normal gameplay (and a bit more ;) )

Introduction

Although this guide can be considered informative, it isnt too necessary if you're playing on normal difficulty. Thus I will assume you mostly play on Hard (or higher), and that you have the Invasion mechanic turned on.
A short word about "invasion" (a swordtomb boss emerges and marches to your village each X turns, X depending on invasion frequency setting and varies between 5+ years and 1year (12turns) at the most extreme) : it makes the game radically different and I highly suggest you to play with it. Without it, there's not too much need for strategy as you can just grow and do whatever you want anytime anywhere and decide when to fight bosses, which is fine and fun on its own but doesnt require "strategising" or too much "planning ahead", which is the point of this guide.

0. Build planning

It is necessary to do at least a bit of planning before starting. The game seemingly tells you to "chose a sect", but rather then that, it would be wiser to chose a playstyle (as you WILL be visiting SEVERAL sects at the minimum), that is choose one or two Elements and one or two fighting techniques, and decide wether you want to do Internal damage, or External damage.

Here are a few examples :
- wood and water internal damage, finger and fist arts
- earth and metal external damage, blade and sword arts
- wood and internal damage poisons
- earth and external damage poisons
etc...

As for chosing your inner art elements wisely, there are several other mechanical guides out there about it, so i'll skip that.

A few general guidelines :
- earth and metal are mostly (but not exclusively) physical/external
- wood and water are mostly (but not exclusively) qi/internal
- fire has hybrid, physical and internal arts

Chose whatever suits your fancy, and if you're wondering what is strong and what isnt, well that's for you to discover though here's a very short list of what I personally consider "overpowered".

0.5 The "OP" list
What I mean by this term is "strong to the point that it break the game and kills the fun for me, so i dont play it (anymore)". In other terms there are PLENTY other strong arts and combos in the game, these ones are just the "game-breaking ones" and are just a humble personal opinion. Also not included are many high level arts because its fine for high level stuff to be strong as it requires effort. [exception : you can get any t3 technique from the start (purple talent tree), so there are several t3s listed] :

• Emei's "Quiet Return Into One" t5 stunt (95% of ennemies cant use any skills anymore, bosses included)
  
• Sword Manor's weapon refinement (specifically damage, accuracy or penetration from the sword-line (t8 t3 t2), all the rest is ok because situationnal or not too strong)
  
• Skills that have an absurd high "skill power", because it multiplies accuracy and penetration aswell and ends up with ridiculous one-shotting damage : Yuanshuan's t5 blade / Emei's t3 dagger / BloodHouse's t5 fist (orthodox is ok because super risky to use, heterodox is not, lowrisk and easy oneshots) / ...there are many more but these are the first that come to mind
  
• Melody arts (its not too strong, but it bypasses most combat mechanics and also confuses AI : most defensive skills when used by AI actually benefit the melody attacker more, which is ridiculous... (AI tries to defend and helps attacker)).
  
• Cloud Nine Kicks t3 kick from yuanshuan (theres many other very strong/somewhat op kicks, but at least they require a bit of comboing/thinking. This is just op on its own so its an unfun cheese imo)

1. Character Creation

This section will not include sect and martial arts choice as that should be decided first (see previous section, Build Planning).

Talent trees
- Middle (yellow) one is a bit bland, more ressources and utility things (the clothes and steed are useful, the artefact is very useful but nothing too fun).
- Left (blue) has stat boosts but that only matters for your first character... i'd rather reccomend the appearance boost and the +1 pure essence, as those will be inherited. (the pure essence is inherited by any next taiwu, the appearance thing is 100% inherited to any children). Childhood friend is also not to be underestimated. He/she starts the game with you, so if you dont like his/her stats and talents, you can reroll the game. Meaning it can be a perfect starting marriage partner that you dont have to search for, guaranteing powerful children in the least amount of time
- Right (purple) tree is often the most played one, as one of its final boosts gives you an "ancient technique". This means you get a random t3 (non-inner art) technique of the nearby sect you start at. By rerolling the game you can get the one of your choice, and this can often be build-defining. The other point of note are "Potential radiance" and "Convergence of sharp blade", two very good traits that are both 100% inherited by any of your children and help a lot with reading and breaktroughs. Very potent.
Most of the time, here's how I would chose : Does my build require a specific t3 art? if yes, the choice is made, purple tree all the way. If no, then there's some room for choice. Personally my favoured start is childhood friend from blue + potential and convergence from purple, and whatever for the rest.

Standpoint
Do as you feel, but know that Even and Kind are BY FAR the easiest choices. Egoist and Rebel behaviour attract a lot of bad impressions, so acting like that constantly will create you a ton of ennemies. An important point of note : you can act egoist/rebel while being a kind or even person, it doesnt matter. As long as its not your regular behaviour but just here and there, it wont affect your mood at all. On the contrary, genuine rebel/egoist characters might be forced to act "even" often so as to not provoke too many people, thus resulting in very bad mood overall (because you're not acting true to yourself).
Final note : "Just" is like egoist and rebel, but not as bad.
In terms of behaviour once in game, do not confuse standpoint and reputation. Reputation has more to do with whom you befriend, help and teach. It can also be modified by specific behaviour (killing lowers it, helping the poor boosts it, etc...), but remember this : try to keep your reputation Unknown or Mixed (in the middle) or as close as possible to mixed, as only so will you be able to learn from both good and evil sects !

Age and lifespan
If your character has early or balanced growth, start young, if he/she has late growth, start at 30years old. However, once in game, make sure your character has at LEAST 20ish years to live so it gets enough time to establish a good foundation and have kids that are 15+ by the time it dies naturally. If you're so unlucky that yoru character only has a few years to live, reroll game immediately...

2. Establishing a strong foundation (A)

This will be the most important and most extensive part. So what do I mean by establishing a strong foundation? The following :
- Develloping the village and manpower so you get good money and ressources and also have health sustain for the villagers
- Learning martial arts from several sects
- Devellop fine arts
- Crafting/enhancing gear
This will take a very long time and i'll divide it in two steps to make it clearer and name these steps A and B. The dividing line between those two is : before the first invasion / after the first invasion. Also, depending on your build and on the difficulty level and invasion frequency, step B may differ (more on this in section B)

A) Basic priorities.
You should somewhat follow the order of the following but some of these activities be mixed into eachother (such as finding a wife/husband) :

- Get stronger so you can fight bandits and random ennemies aswell as win small tournaments and adventures. How? By going to your sect of choice, learning the first inner arts and martial arts you need. If it isnt enough and/or your build is not very potent at first, go to one or two more sects just for the inner arts so you get a bit more inner art cultivation. This step can take 3 to 5 years easely

- Sustain your village before internal conflict makes them all murder and poison each other to death. This doesnt have to be one of the first steps, but the earlier you do it the better so lets do it very early. How? Learn the second and third books of medecine and toxicology, either from a sect or from passing merchants/festivals. Can take time if unlucky, hence start looking early. Practice these books, the t7 (third books) will unlock sustain buildings, Welfare Hospital and Mad Medic. When you have time (less urgent but still important), practice the second books aswell, so you get blue buildings (a bit expensive) : these will produce additional villagers skilled in medecine/toxicology, which both boosts the

- Get money and some gear. How? At first clear small bandit camps to get some gear and sell loot, but quickly you should. Build street+fair and level up station in town, thats enough to have a decent money sustain.

- Ressource sustain. Many of these steps will require more ressources then just money. Allocate villagers to work on the map to bring a good flow of ressources, and focus on herbs. You will need a lot, its used both for healing but also for all your medical buildings. To get enough manpower for sustaining and building, build and level up the Dorm building, it's crucial early on.

- Start making kids and a family. Ideally find a wife/husband earlier then this (childhood friend comes to mind), but if you havent found one when 4 or 5 years have already passed, hurry up ! Time without kids = time when your (future) kids arent growing. If you happen to die before your kids turn 14, you'll regret it bitterly

- Refine some gear +EVA/DIV/PAR (choose one or two defences at most) on helm/armor/boots. For this you'll probably have to do some adventures, pick the best green or blue (t7 t6) armor pieces you can either from loot or from merchants, disenchant the rest and refine with the disenchanted materials. Some mods tell you what material you'll get when disenchanting, this helps a lot

- Get stronger again. Meaning go to all the sects you intend to for your build, learn as much inner arts as possible, and possibly more martial arts especially if there are nice synergies/combos with your main stuff. This step can take a lot of time and is most likely extended into step B. End of step A would be first invasion
By now the first invasion should have come or should be coming, and a crucial question appears. Can you beat it? (most probably yes)

- If you cant, do you at least have 10yo+ kids? If yes, dont worry invasion dissapears when you die, so you can have random "interim" leaders (or the other parent of your kids for instance) in the meantime. If you dont even have kids, uhh you should either restart this playtrough or drastically change/lower difficulty upon death.

- If you can, there is still a very important choice to be made. Are you confident in beating the next one ? This mostly happens if you have all your inner arts (so you should be super strong for early game) and are using some pretty strong martial arts, possibly some good early game combos. If you can or feel confident enough, go to your first swordtomb of choice (see downbelow for swordtomb order choice strategy tips) and beat it, but dont kill more then one swordtomb !

2. Establishing a strong foundation (B)

B)Growth or as cultivation novels would call it, "consolidating your foundations" ;)

This next step will be the second long step, as in it will take many years (probably even 10+ years). Depending on your current martial arts strength, this will be spread between beating no sword tomb and having beaten one. As soon as you feel confident in repelling the second invasion, beat your first sword tomb and enter this second phase, because you'll be able to get extremely good benefits after beating even just one sword tomb, thus that is the optimal state for long-term growth (best difficulty/benefits ratio).

First here's a list of things to do whether you've cleared a swordtomb or not :

- Get stronger again. Meaning go to all the sects you intend to for your build, learn as much inner arts as possible, and possibly more martial arts especially if there are nice synergies/combos with your main stuff. This step can take a lot of time .

- Learn fine arts. There are a few fine arts you SHOULD learn no matter what. First came medecine and toxicology for the village sustain and in-battle healing, those are vital no matter what build you play. Next is any fine art that's a requirement for most of your skills. Several sects use "Taoism" or "Buddhism" or even both. For some other sects it can even be Medecine/Toxicology, making things even easier. You don't have to practice these arts, but you must absolutely read and buy books to get more attainement, this will make many of your skills stronger and is a vital step. The last category of arts you should learn is crafting (forging weaving gemcutting carpentry). Depending on your game progress, learn a bit of each and then focus on one or two, especially if you need weapons and gear of a specific material. At least a bit of each for repair is useful.

- Grow and groom your family. You should have several children by now and they should be over 10 or 15. Find partners for them, ideally with good stats, talents and traits... this could be a lot of work ! You can also increase your party's talents at the ancestral halls (remember that babies talents are based upon their parents, so boosting parents means better children)

- Grow your village further. Brothels for money perhaps (if you already have the Street), some specific buildings to your ressources (not a priority), allocate more villagers to ressource gathering (you should have at least 50+ or more now, between possessed and buildings that generate people). A note on possessed people attacking you : you always have the choice to either recruit them or not... except if they have something you badly need (if they are wife/husband material for instance), do not recruit Egoist and Rebel people, and maybe not even Just ones


Next are the "additional options" unlocked with one tomb beaten :
- Get stronger again by learning more inner arts firstly and any good martial art that synergises well with your current build. Regardless of your element, I would strongly suggest going to the BloodHouse to learn inner arts and getting the t6 "3 Poisons of Darkness Spell" as it is one of the best early/mid (and sometimes late) game Inner Arts. it's neutral so dont worry about elements, and if earth is bad for your cultivation dont practice the t9 t8 t7 ones higher then 50% (the amount of earth qi those give is very low and will be largely offset at mid and high levels). Unless you somehow always have bad mood (if you play egoist or just, this might happen).

- Master's Tournaments. These are your ticket to success. You can join any master tournament if you have 50%+ favour in a sect (thus requires one tomb beaten). The benefits are immense, and don't worry you're not here to fight. If you have crickets and/or companions that help with "Cleverness" (green "?" icon), equip them. Every master's tournament will be a random roulette where you can get some of the following benefits : T2 arts (including inner arts !!!!!) / some internal energy cultivation (its a %age, so early on benefits are low, but later in the game this gives some nice benefits) / some help to understand a technique (a t2 art for instance...)

- Grow your elite t2 arts acquired in master's tournaments, and if you received some weird ones, see if you can perhaps adapt your build around them or even shift builds. This can be very worth it, as its very hard to get exactly the t2 art you need (its already not easy to get one at all, and its random), so if you get any t2 try to use them if you can. Of course reading the books you've gotten could be extremely hard/downright impossible but the moment you learned the techniques... you can buy the books at the corresponding sect. So farming prestige (killing ennemies, selling books, and village) to buy more/several books could be worth it. Even if the technique seems absolutely un-useable, don't underestimate the huge Attainement bonus you'll get from reading the book only (+90).

- Sect special bonuses. With 50% regional deeds unlocked, each sect has a special function which costs 50% regional deeds to use (talk to any highranked and select the option in the "interaction" menu). To get regional deeds, just beath thugs (making them flee works too), and/or complete adventures (this gives a lot of deeds at once, often 50%+). Most notable and useful are the XuanNyuPeak and RanShan regions. The first one can better your traits or reduce your bad traits (but cant remove them), and the second one can change the standpoint. An important note : you can provide these boni to anyone in your party, meaning you can grow your family this way by making your kids and their partners have better traits, change their annoying rebel/egoist/just behaviours towards better standpoints, etc...

3. Mid game and sword tombs

So what comes next? Once you've established an extremely strong foundation, you're ready to go on. But let's first review what we mean by strong foundation

- A character possibly a t2 inner art and/or perhaps one or two t2 fighting skills. Using martial arts from several sects and inner arts from as many sects as possible (except for your opposed elements, so probably maxing two elements and possibly a bit of a third)

- Having several heirs ready (your children probably) and a strong family (your children have partners and probably children of their own, your total family is approaching 10+ people). Several strong children means that you get several heirs in case you die, not just one. And on another note, it grows your village with very strong people. Lastly the more your family grows, the higher you get geniuses (people with very good stats/talents/traits) !

- A strong economy and good items (lots of ressources and money, decent prestige generation, can buy most anything from shops, lots of good potions and food).

- Good gear (t6 or t5 gear with + to defensive stats DIV AGI PAR or perhaps +QiD +PhD). Ideally you have one defense at 1400+ or two at 1000/1200+

- If possible, more then one fighting style (several profiles with different kind of arts) for fighting various kinds of ennemies (very useful for fighting different kinds of bosses)

Once you've gotten all this, you're ready to go on. Invasion bosses on harder difficulties are no joke and may require you to adapt specifically. The most important adaptation is to choose the order in which you're going to fight them. Although this is only talked about now, this should in fact be chosen at the start of the playtrough. Another (dangerous but fun) option is to just go with the flow and fight them in the Invasion order (always clear swordtomb of current invasion boss), but you best be confident in your ability to fight the last ones, it's gonna be no joke !
Back to our list, what we use to decide is mostly the bosses special powers when they are half dead.

Sword tomb list (and some additional important info)

• weaving monyu====more dmg on follow up atks (note : she's emei and thats a strong school. uses quiet return into one !)
  
• vanquish evil =====can't leave their atk range
  
• glacial vassal===== slows you down on every aspect (note : when he dies, gets a hp bar... long boss)
  
• pheonix cocoon====randomly gain forces, when achieve double of you on every force, invulnerable
  
• spirit smelting=====if she has more usable styles then you, do 100* dmg
  
• draconic anima====atk range become 2-9 (note : is a virgin shaolin monk with marrow sutra... crazy stats)
  
• anchorite=========increase 3 counters (dodges) if have movement token (note : if move tokens, untouchable. Also, he's fast and hurts)
  
• infernal acerjail====double dmg, and dmg reduced in half
  
• wonderglow=======reflect 100* dmg, for the different between you ext/int dmg you are doing (note : widely considered "most annoying". Heavy suggestion on either using poison skills to fight her, or if you use 100% inhale skills, using 100% external weapons to balance it out. Annoying because if the split isnt perfect, even 49/51% will kill you)

Planning sword tombs :
So what order to pick? It vastly depends on your build and on difficulty level (harder to burst down a boss fast on higher difficulties). Wonderglow is very annoying but not necessarely the worst. If your build kills slowly and over time, phoenix cocoon and possibly glacial vessel are among the worst. If your 3 accuracies arent high enough, Mo Nyu is very annoying (you lose stance and inhale when you miss ANY hit...). If you cant generate many styles fast enough and/or are slow moving, spirit smelting might kite you and/or murder you because too little styles.

My personal worst list ? MoNyu (all around pain in the...), Wonderglow (very annoying), Draconic Anima (high stats, dangerous) and Anchorite (fast, damaging, high defenses, overall stronk like Draconic Anima).

4. Late game

Under construction

Credits

Thanks to ninte000 not only for translation work but also for all his gameplay guides and his help over the months on discord
Thanks to the discord community for being awesome and helping out a lot from start and still now